Vehicles, such as automobiles, include a frame and a body supported on the frame. The frame may be designed to provide structural rigidity to prevent unwanted deformation and/or to prevent intrusion during an impact. For example, an electric vehicle includes a battery and the frame may be designed to reinforce a compartment in which the battery is supported. The frame may, for example, include a pair of rails spaced from each other and extending in a fore and aft direction to define the battery compartment between the rails. The battery may extend from one of the rails to another of the rails.
Structural rigidity of the rails may be important to limit the possibility of deformation in the vicinity of the battery and/or to prevent intrusion into the battery compartment. However, structure added to the frame, e.g., added to the rails, may disadvantageously create packaging constraints that do not accommodate the battery between the rails. Such added structure may also occupy space otherwise occupied by the cabin of the vehicle, thus disadvantageously decreasing the size of the cabin.
There remains an opportunity to provide reinforcement between the rails while minimizing packaging constraints in the battery compartment and in the cabin of the vehicle.